Pups (1999)

FILM REVIEW; They've Got Hostages, and They Want Their MTV

Two 13-year-olds, precariously imbalanced on the edge of a new millennium, they impulsively digress from their morning walk to school one day in December 1999 to hold up a bank in ''Pups.''

Armed with a .44 Magnum taken from the closet of Stevie's absent mother, energized by inchoate anger and disappointment with the world, fantasizing about running off to the Galapagos Islands for a better life, they make hostages of employees and customers, shoot a security guard and find themselves surrounded by the F.B.I., police officers, SWAT teams and helicopters.

As the standoff plays out, the hyperkinetic, perceptive though derivative ''Pups,'' produced, directed and written by a filmmaker who goes by the single name Ash, takes a knowing look at adolescents informed but not educated by television and movies in a less than perfect United States.

With a staginess reminiscent of ''The Petrified Forest'' and with overt and covert references to films like ''Bonnie and Clyde,'' ''Dog Day Afternoon,'' ''Of Mice and Men'' and even ''All Quiet on the Western Front,'' Ash's adrenal little film, like its adolescent main characters, has been shaped, for better and worse, by the screen.

With easy access to guns and little access to life except as depicted on television and in videos and movies, the teenagers talk like grown-ups and think and act like confused children unable to distinguish reality from make-believe.

Obscenities, threats and sexual boasts are part of their vocabulary. So are solitary games involving video cameras, nooses and the police; complaints about environmental pollution and neglectful parents; confessional self-analysis; allegations of sexual abuse; and a cynical knowledge of how to manipulate authority figures. Pizza, beer and soda are their treats. A visit from MTV is among Stevie's demands, as are margarita mix, condoms and an end to smoking by the F.B.I. commander.

Stevie (Cameron Van Hoy), wearing a T-shirt imprinted with a yellow smiley face, is thrilled to see himself on the news on the bank's television. He calls Rocky (Mischa Barton), in her tank top imprinted with a red heart, to look.

''Cool,'' she says.

When Stevie receives his visit from MTV Kurt Loder, playing himself, arrives for the interview and tells the boy: ''We do Manson. We do Madonna. Now we're doing you.''

Part of Stevie fancies himself a sophisticate. ''We're no suckers,'' he says to street people who try to sell him and Rocky 3-week-old pit bull pups. Stevie, who resorts frequently to an inhaler to ease his respiratory problems, tells Rocky that the dogs were separated too soon from their mother and their immune system is therefore compromised.

Once the authorities respond to the holdup, Stevie finds himself negotiating with Daniel Bender, an F.B.I. agent played by Burt Reynolds with a workmanlike mixture of toughness, irascibility and mission. Irked by his importunate superior and repeatedly interrupted by cell-phone calls from his family, Bender is a patient professional determined to end the matter without further bloodshed.

Stevie, portrayed as a volatile, fast-talking compendium of pop culture, childish rage, adolescent mischief and adult stupidity and remorse, is compassionate enough to free the wounded guard and wise enough in the ways of power politics and televised hostage situations to give orders to Bender, whose family is watching the drama on the news.

Rocky, in a layered performance, combines loyal girlfriend and voice of reason with deep cynicism toward the world she was born into and now is shaping.

The hostages, some written more fully than others, consist not only of the manager and a couple of tellers, but also of customers who include a Persian Gulf war veteran in a wheelchair (Adam Farrar) and Mr. Edwards (Ed Metzger), a World War II veteran with a cane. The pairing provides Ash with yet another opportunity for a generational skirmish.

Says the older veteran, ''America used to be a great country.''

PUPS

Written and directed by Ash; director of photography, Carlos Arguello; edited by Michael D. Schultz; production designer, Daniel M. Berger; produced by Ash and Mr. Berger; released by Allied Entertainment Group. At the Village East, 189 Second Avenue, at 12th Street, East Village. Running time: 100 minutes. This film is not rated.